Saturday, March 17, 2012

Stillness

"I want to be the unwobbling pivot at the center of an ever revolving universe. I want to be...still"

I can feel the quiet all around me. It resonates, a soft vibration of non-existent ripples, like soft wind on the water. These are the times when I am most aware of me, what I am, what I've done, what I will do. Silence and stillness frighten me. Silence and stillness entice me. They are a rare combination when your mind's a storm yet somehow also the eye of the storm. It's these moments in which I reconcile myself, I rise and fall by memories and push ever forward. Still.

Here is where the ghosts come out again. As much as I try to make my peace with them, some insist on holding out. Yet I am fine with this, acceptance that some things just do not exist. Like a sorrow come alone or a dream for insomniacs. The ghosts of a veteran...haunting memory and dreams for forever and a day. The ghosts...they know this is the time of weakness. It is that time when the mind and soul try to reconnect and find balance. That area of serenity. Still.

At this moment, I am one and know and try to accept that this is only a moment, like everything before. All moments, the past and future, constantly ebbing and flowing. Like a surfer looking for absolution in that one perfect wave, I will ride it where it takes me. In this time, this collection of seconds to minutes to hours to days etc., etc... I will not seek all the answers because I know that some questions just do not have them. I am willing to accept that. In that be comforted and confrontational of all those things which attack me and bring me back to the pain and suffering. Still.

The truth of all these words is that I will live everyday for the rest of my life on this journey. The stillness is not a constant. Never can be. Those of us who have seen the atrocity exhibition of war can never truly escape the constant risk of being caught in the undertow. We run so far and so fast that we lose family and friends and sanity and all else. But we never lose that haunting, lost feeling. Sometimes it is just to damn much. Do not demonize SSG Robert Bales nor allow the media or our CDR in Chief do so either. They can never know what we know nor understand what it's like to have horrors replay on a constant loop in your mind. They can have the stillness. Our hearts and our minds can never be still.

1 comment:

Please don't ever lose hope, if your living than you have hope, hope can change the darkest of the mind, the worse place to be is lost without hope of better that's coming, you know your not alone in your pain, you have fellow servicemen and women at the very place you are, my heart breaks for all of you, my son is among you, know your friends and family love you just don't know how to help, what to say or do, I do know as a mother and a person of faith that God is real and we live in a evil world , he created the world in the beginning and it was good, sin changed it all, now our hope comes from Jesus and knowing him, there is nothing you did that is unforgivable, he loves you, he knows your reading right now, I don't know you but he does, so mix hope and faith and your life will change, your mind will have peace and you can in turn share and help others:-) I will pray for you:-) smile Jesus lives and loves you always

About Me

As a combat veteran, I see the world though a much different lens. All the things that made me who I am up until these past 7yrs now are all an amalgamation of experiences, situations and the way the human mind logically processes the illogical. Hopefully this offers someone a chance to recognize another person seeing things as they do.